Arctic sea ice extent near its record low minimum: data center

Arctic sea ice extent for Sept. 17 was 3.41 million square kilometres. The orange line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that day. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. (IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NSIDC)

The Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center says Arctic sea ice coverage this year remains the lowest recorded since 1979 — and it’s yet to reach its low for the year.

But this doesn’t mean that the Arctic in 2012 has been free of sea ice and dangerous ice floes.

The narrow, shallow southern route used by Norway’s polar explorer Roald Amundsen in 1906 to transit the Northwest Passage and the wide, deep northern route through the Parry Channel opened in 2007.

But this year only the southern route through the Northwest Passage opened, the data centre said Sept. 18.

According to Canadian Ice Service, rapid ice loss took place in the Parry Channel in July.

However, multiyear ice from the north kept at least some of the channel blocked.

Conditions in the Chukchi Sea off the North Slope of Alaska, where Shell started to drill for oil, provide another example of uneven ice conditions in the Arctic, the data centre said.